


Playing with Fire

by misura



Category: Iskryne Series - Elizabeth Bear & Sarah Monette
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-28
Updated: 2018-11-28
Packaged: 2019-09-05 04:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16803520
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misura/pseuds/misura
Summary: Skjaldwulf decides the pack needs a distraction from the threat of the Rheans.





	Playing with Fire

**Author's Note:**

  * For [nomeancity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/nomeancity/gifts).



> a treat, because yay, telepathic wolves!

In the normal course of things, each small victory would have brought some small joy, as the losses of each defeat were tallied, grieved and moved past. War was nothing new, after all, nor loss, nor a momentary defeat - as all defeats had been, during the seemingly-unending war against the trolls.

Yet somehow, it was not so. It might be that the Rheans were men, as they themselves were, for all that their behavior in some matters seemed as alien as that of the trolls had been.

 _An entire people, gone viking,_ Skjaldwulf thought to himself, even if that was not quite the truth of things, either. Besides, as Otter told it, the Rheans were less a people and more a gathering of people, united by some shadowy council many of them had never even heard speak.

The pack-sense felt worried, uncomfortable. While everyone knew how to fight, no one knew how to win, and with losing and being conquered clearly not being an option, the future felt uncertain. When the trolls had gone, at least they had had a victory to draw joy from, won for them by Isolfr Ice-Mad, whom Skjaldwulf loved too well to tell of his deeds, even though he might wish to.

Now, though they had driven off the latest Rhean force to land - _peace_ , Skjaldwulf thought to himself, seeing Mar turn his head to look at him and huff.

Skjaldwulf had not Isolfr's gift, to speak to all the wolves, but with Mar, he communicated well enough.

 _Peace,_ Mar agreed, sending smells and images and feelings: a bitter cold through which no man would willingly walk, being trapped in a small cave with only a little food, and the fleeting joy of running through a forest, knowing there were men behind you taking down the trees one by one.

 _I should do something,_ Skjaldwulf thought, more to himself than to Mar.

Mar grunted and moved a bit closer to the hearth, until Skjaldwulf might nearly fear he might get himself set on fire.

 _Pups,_ Mar said, implying he was too old and wise to make such a misjudgment.

Possibly, he also meant it as helpful suggestion, though from whence Skjaldwulf might magic up a litter of pups escaped him. Besides, best make do with what he had and knew, and leave Mar to warm his old bones as much as he wanted.

That Vethulf and Skjadwulf shared a bed was no secret. That this did not keep them from arguing, as often as not at the top of their lungs, even less of one. So long as Mar and Kjaran remained uninvolved, the pack-sense paid little attention to the arguments of men. What significance, after all, the shouting of two brothers with the Rheans bound to come harry them again sooner rather than later?

It helped (or, depending on one's point of view, hindered) that Vethulf appeared as willing to argue over small matters as over large ones, or moreso, Skjaldwulf suspected sometimes, small matters being by their nature of little significance. Flame-haired and fire-tempered Vethulf might be; a fool he was not.

Predictable, though. Skjaldwulf aided the matter by taking a stance that was not in itself unreasonable, though he ensured his stated reasons lacked merit, his tone, the conviction of one with true belief in his words. Vethulf's temper flared, and rather than stand his ground, Skjaldwulf allowed his defenses to crumble and then walked away, leaving Vethulf to glare daggers at his back.

That night, he slept alone, away from their shared room, ignoring the puzzled looks sent his way as he did Mar's questioning thoughts, save to assure his brother that all was well, that he knew quite well what he was doing.

Mar sent him an image of a young wolf with his tail on fire.

Isolfr came to see him as quickly as two days after. They saw one another regularly enough, for all manner of business, but this particular visit was personal and, Skjaldwulf judged, on a subject Isolfr was not entirely comfortable with, though he would do his best to deal with it, as he did all matters.

"It is a bad time for change," Isolfr said. He almost sounded apologetic.

"Not change," Skjaldwulf said. To speak to Isolfr was to speak to Viradechtis, or as near as, and in a very real sense, Viradechtis was the pack. "Only a game." He could not say it was meant as a distraction, not and keep it as one. "I got a bit tired of needing to win arguments by shouting the loudest."

Isolfr's lips quirked. "And so what now? Will you win arguments by not being there at all?"

"I haven't gone anywhere, nor do I intend to," Skjaldwulf said, calmly.

Isolfr acknowledged the truth of this with a brief nod. "People are saying this falling-out is his doing, rather than yours. That he let his temper get the better of him and went too far."

"Surely no one knowing Vethulf could imagine such a thing," Skjaldwulf said, his tone bland.

The words won him another smile and almost, he imagined he might love Isolfr again, or still. _Fool,_ Skjaldwulf told himself, feeling the pack-sense catch the scent of the thought and draw its own conclusions from it.

"I will leave the solving in your hands, then," Isolfr said, and Skjaldwulf knew that when Isolfr said 'your' he meant both his wolf-jarls, not just Skjaldwulf.

Skjaldwulf nodded. It would serve.

_A game,_ he had told Isolfr, and so he would play. A story, after all of the heall had eaten their fill, of lovers parted and reunited and then parted and reunited again. A song that spoke of feelings unchanged in the face of callous disregard.

Vethulf did not stay to hear the end of it, though Kjaran did not accompany him on his way out, providing Viradechtis with a place to rest her head.

The pack-sense had taken an interest. Worry for what might happen months from now had been replaced by concern over what had occured last night, speculation over what might happen today, tomorrow, two days from now.

Mar and Kjaran seemed in perfect accord, still. Skjaldwulf suspected they were the root of the sense of tolerance-amusement-exasperation that ran underneath the worry. It reassured him and lessened his guilt, in adding to Isolfr's burden, however necessary he judged it. In causing Vethulf to be on the receiving end of unfriendly looks.

 _People are saying this is his doing_ , Isolfr had said, and Skjaldwulf had known that it would be so, as surely as he knew those people were unjust, that Vethulf's grip on his temper was not such that he would let it slip the leash as easy as that, to break something Vethulf thought valuable.

Had Vethulf possessed even a sliver of a skald's gifts, Skjaldwulf might have laid the matter before him, extending an offer to let Vethulf take the part of injured party for his own, if he so wished. There was no deceit in Vethulf however, for good or for ill. There was only bluster and a preference for showing anger over showing hurt or sadness, and this would never have served Skjaldwulf's purpose.

He had left Vethulf the bed, Skjaldwulf soothed his conscience thinking. Big, for a man and his brother, but comfortable.

A pattern emerged, slowly grown into routine. By day, all would seem normal. By evening, Skjaldwulf would sing. By night, both he and Vethulf would sleep apart.

The mood of the pack-sense had shifted and kept shifting. Some nights, Mar and Kjaran would sleep with their brothers, while other times, they might both share Vethulf's bed, or Skjaldwulf's blankets. Once, Viradechtis joined them, and this was the night Skjaldwulf thought surely the game was up, done and declared ended by the highest authority possible, but she only looked at him and huffed a little.

Isolfr kept his distance, for the moment.

Vethulf walked around scowling and snapping at most who came in his path (though never, Skjaldwulf noted, with a mixture of pleased pride and respect, at those likely to take it ill, like the newly arrived tithe-boys) though for all that, he too kept his distance, clearly considering the first move to be Skjaldwulf's, as was only fair, given that he did not know this was a game, let alone its rules.

It could not last, of course.

"I miss you," Vethulf said, a perfect echo of the words he had spoken some years ago, at the beginning of all this, though he sounded even more aggrieved now than he had then. _'I missed you,'_ he had said, and Skjaldwulf had heard love and friendship and desire, for all that Vethulf's face had given away none of these things any more than his tone had.

 _'I miss you as well,'_ was what Skjaldwulf's stories and songs had been saying all these nights past. _'I want you back. I still love you.'_ If they were not lies, they were not entirely honest, either.

Kjaran walked in and draped himself over Mar. Mar let him.

"I know," Skjaldwulf said. If it was unkind, at least it was truth.

"Then why - " Vethulf's hands were balled into fists. Skjaldwulf knew as sure as he knew anything that Vethulf would never raise them, not in anger, not against anyone not an enemy.

"You're not an idiot. Figure it out," he said. Truth, yet unkind.

"Isolfr says I should ignore you," said Vethulf.

 _Isolfr would have me drink my own brewing._ A fair move, in a way: to make Skjaldwulf mend what it had been his own doing to cause to appear broken. "So why aren't you?"

"The Rheans will come again soon enough," Vethulf said. "And if not them, then another cave-bear. Time is not something we have an unending supply of."

 _I know._ Had he not been rock-solid convinced of Vethulf's feelings, Skjaldwulf would have never risked this game. "You're not telling me anything I didn't already know."

"Then what do you want me to do?" Vethulf asked.

_Be courted. Be won, but slowly. Make a spectacle of yourself._

Mar huffed, sending Skjaldwulf an image of his and Vethulf's last argument.

"Tonight, don't leave before I'm done."

Vethulf's expression was a mixture of relief and incredulity. "That easy?"

Kjaran huffed. Vethulf scowled.

"Why should you do more, when none of this is your fault?" Skjaldwulf said. "Thank you."

Vethulf's scowl turned into a glower. He had grasped the way of things, then. "It would serve you right if I didn't show up at all."

"Yes," Skjaldwulf said. "However, I rely on your kindness."

"Ha!" said Vethulf.

Kjaran started washing Mar's face. Mar sighed.

In the pack-sense, there were equal parts of rolling-their-eyes and relief-joy-grumpiness that night, which was good and as close as anything to the goal Skjaldwulf had set for himself.

Next to him, Vethulf was fast asleep, Mar and Kjaran to the left of him, and that too was as Skjaldwulf had intended.

To the right of him, well. Viradechtis looked back at him, showing her teeth only a little. They had herded him and Vethulf, her and Mar and Kjaran. The impression he'd gotten from Mar had been that of sheep. Silly, stupid, stubborn sheep, who would get nipped if they did not do as they were supposed to.

A fair enough comparison, had things been as they seemed, Skjaldwulf thought.

Viradechtis growled, soft enough not to wake anyone.

Skjaldwulf amended his thought. He had intended well. He had not meant to hurt Vethulf's feelings or cause him any distress.

Viradechtis huffed.

He had, Skjaldwulf thought emphatically, not for a moment wished to inconvenience Isolfr, or make him doubt the competence and loyalty and steadfastness of his wolf-jarls.

Viradechtis sighed and rolled over to go to sleep, the pack-sense pleased-exasperated-fond.


End file.
